London-based Vixen Capital is an algorithmic trading company, which is now looking to the C4DI to expand its operations. We caught up with Rahul Tandon, Managing Partner, to find out about his role and why they have chosen Hull.

“In a nutshell, we are a financial trading company, and we’re looking to open a new trading floor,” explains Rahul. “Hull has been targeted because the London market is so saturated, with many trading floors to compete with.”

Vixen Capital is now aiming to recruit 5-10 people, who will be taught the ways of trading and work at the new setup: “I’m from the area, so I thought it’d be a great way to capture talent from Hull, especially from the university and business school,” Rahul enthuses.

“One of the speciality markets that we trade in is oil and gas, and there has been a huge boom in the energy market recently, both in renewables and non-renewables,” he added. “We’re aiming to capture that growing market.”

Algorithmic trading is rare outside of large banks and businesses, the main reason being that it is quite expensive. It requires a form of artificial intelligence to make the important buying and selling decisions: “It’s a niche market but it’s a lot of fun, with the end goal of making money for our clients,” laughs Rahul.

“We write a computer code to do the decision making. The systems are artificially intelligent, they learn how to trade in the market, look out for movements and patterns, and then call upon their ‘memory’ to decide what to do with that information. Either buy, sell or do nothing.”

“That’s why we are here, we want to work closely with other C4DI members to develop this code and draw from the talent pool,” he explains. Specifically, Vixen Capital is currently looking for computer scientists and physicists to join its team of traders.

So why choose AI over human traders?

“The benefits of using AI in trading is that you overcome the two key hurdles that hold back a human, namely greed and fear,” says Rahul. “Take away the emotion, and the algorithm easily outperforms human traders."

However, Rahul stresses that there’s still a need for humans in trading: “We have to monitor the technology to make sure it doesn’t go crazy or reach the maximum loss.”

“I used to work in banking and realised that a lot of what I did could be automated. I spoke with an old professor, and we’ve been growing Vixen Capital for a few years now.”

If you think that your skills could benefit Vixen Capital, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Rahul on Slack or via email: rahul@vixencapital.com